Checking In!

Just checking in here on the blog scene! I am alive!
:-) It's been a little while since I posted...I've just been busy with life!
This week we get to celebrate Luke's 3rd birthday!! The party itself will happen after the fact, but we'll be heading to Grandpa and Grandma's farm for the day - something the birthday boy has been hoping to do for awhile!

MITs

MITs of the day:

Dinner preparations
Prepare for leading Bible study tomorrow/email my group
Fold and put away laundry!

Listening to...

I'm currently listening to and being encouraged by this audio file by Carolyn Mahaney! If you're a mom to little ones you'll want to check it out.

A Beautiful Christmas

Here are a few glimpses of our Christmas season:

Merry Christmas!

Blessings and Merry Christmas!
Last night we made and decorated sugar cookies using America's Test Kitchen's recipe. It was very yummy but also very tedious! But hey...it was worth it! You know it's good when it calls for 2 sticks of butter. We doubled the recipe and ended up with enough to give some away and some to enjoy for ourselves. Chilling the dough is definitely a huge help when making sugar cookies. As far as the other secrets..they definitely helped though I did not go to the added expense of buying parchment paper. I had pretty good results with rolling the dough out on wax paper and then transferring the cut out cookies directly to baking sheets as long as the dough was nice and cool. It would have been less mess with parchment paper, but my awesome husband helped me do all the dishes! :-)

Today I'm hoping to have a chance to work on the stockings I'm making for the kids!!
Merry Christmas!

Be Inspired

- Meredeth's creativity always inspires..what a beautiful party!

- A reminder to get started planning for and making food gifts for Christmas!

- A neat snowflake craft (best for older kids..borax is toxic!)

- Handmade holiday master list!

- More handmade fun!

Housekeeping..

Today we've been busy - we delivered taco soup (so good and so easy!) to a friend who had a baby recently and then enjoyed a fun playdate with some other friends.

We've accomplished a few odd jobs as well...
cleaning the tea kettle, sanitizing cutting boards and the dish drainer. Isn't it amazing how those little things tend to never get accomplished? After spending what seemed like forever cleaning out my yucky fridge recently, I vowed to concentrate harder on housekeeping. I've been inspired reading Home Comforts : The Art and Science of Keeping Houselately. It's just one of those books I love. It has so many handy tips on everything you might need to know about keeping house but it is also inspiring..it encourages you to make your house a home and to love doing it.
On to the next tasks of our day...most importantly playing with baby, making yummy fajitas for dinner, and giving a piano lesson!

Squirt Bottle Fun

Need an easy entertainment option for a bored toddler?

Grab a squirt bottle, fill it, and turn them loose on the yard! It works for me!
Luke can spend over half an hour just wandering the yard squirting things. It's great fun for him and gives me a chance to work on something or just sit and read a book for a little while!

Fall Party

We had a wonderful time hosting a fall party for our adult sunday school class recently. Families were invited to bring children along for a fun fall event! We were hoping for good weather and God helped out with a perfectly beautiful and sunny afternoon! One of the few we had all October! I'll share more about where I got my ideas from later, but here are some pics to start with!

Fall Camping

Well between an almost 8 month old baby and a 2.5 year old toddler (who's desperately trying to give up his naps!) I'm finding it hard to find the time to blog lately! Add the fact that this Mom is ready to head to bed by 9:00 most nights and it becomes almost impossible!!

But anyway - I stole a few moments away and thought I'd share some pictures of our recent camping trip! Most of the weekend was freezing cold! We were sure happy to be able to borrow a pop up camper from our inlaws! We were toasty warm at night with that thing! My favorite part of the weekend was spending time with friends and family and also hitting the local antique shop with the gals!

Harvest Party

I'm planning on fall party for my church group! I am so excited to be hosting...
I'm finding inspiration from Monica's lovely Harvest Parties and a little from Martha herself.

Pictures to come later!

Crazy?

Are we crazy?
We're leaving for a camping trip today....
the only reason I can say that we aren't crazy, is that we are borrowing a pop up camper. That should get us through the forecasted snow right?!

A Glimpse of an Artist

My two year old has outdone me artistically. I didn't realize it would happen quiet so soon. I thought his latest drawing was absolutely amazing. He is obsessed with cranes (boom arms as he calls them with technical precision) so that is what he loves to draw. I could not believe my eyes when he showed me this "huge boom arm!" He said it is "picking up logs." His best yet!

Lately

This weekend I went out for a girls afternoon with my sister-in-laws, mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-law (known to all as Nina!) We went and watched Julie and Julia. Ok..I'll admit right now I don't know if I have that movie title right. Is it Julie and Julia or is it Julia and Julie? I am just not the kind of person who stays up to date with current movies! For the most part we enjoyed the movie though they could have left out a few tasteless lines and it would have been most excellent. But anyways the story is neat and relates to blogging...so if you like blogging and also cooking you may like it!

At any rate it left me inspired to try my hand at something like Beef Bourguignon. It looks heavenly. Perhaps someday I will give it a shot. For now though I have homemade dulce de leche in the oven.

Home Again, Home Again

Home again, Home again - jiggity jig.

We returned home last night from our wonderful vacation! We had a great time visiting family and friends! We drove from Chicago to Coloardo..whoohoo we know we are kinda crazy but it was fun and we all lived through the drive! In fact, I feel quite proud that I (sort of) taught myself to knit while we drove. It was our 3rd trek out there with kids and we've had a great time each year. Here are a few photos that capture a little bit of our time. Now we are going through post vacation syndrome...the kids are getting used to taking regular naps again (in beds instead of the van), not having constant parent and grandparent attention, and all that jazz.

Off to Coloardo!

Hey All -
We are leaving for a week and a half vacation tonight!! I'm in the midst of trying to pack (I am such a procrastinator when it comes to packing!) and managing the kids while Mark is at a work conference this weekend.

We will be spending time with family and friends in Illinois, Nebraska, and Colorado! Can't wait! I"l be back in a couple of weeks!

Be Inspired

- Look at these fun cupcakes! Actually take a look at all of these recipes!

- Time capusles in a tube - cute!

- I've been shredding zucchini in my spare time and looking for good zucchini bread recipes, here's one I want to try, thanks to Carrie.. :)

- Parent Hacks discuss getting toddlers to spit after brushing their teeth - a timely post as Luke has his very first dentist appointment tomorrow! Luke is mostly oblivious and just knows that the dentist is going to clean his teeth. I on the other hand am freaking out! Mainly because I can't believe he is old enough to go to the dentist and also because I am worried about how it all will go...

- Chicagoland super couponer Jill Cataldo has changed my shopping habits and saved me some cash!

RolyPoly

Look who I caught rolling herself under the coffee table?!

Aubrey is getting so big - she is already 6 months old! She is a delightful little girl - always sweet and cheerful. Underneath the rolypoly little girl is the newly acquired garage sale rug! I love how it looks in our living room and I love that I was able to get it significantly cheaper than I would have new! It's huge and makes our new living room look so much more pulled together. A new bigger rug was on our list of things to purchase so our neighbor's garage sale definitely saved us some cash!

Not much time to post here - we're headed out to Grandpa's farm this afternoon and still have much packing to do!

We'll be spending some time with family and seeing a cousin get married tomorrow!
In between packing we're hitting our neighbor's garage sale..thinking about purchasing a big rug...hmmm.

Homemade Camp Pancake Mix

When we go camping I like to make up a big batch of this pancake mix and take it along. It's great because it uses dry milk so all you need to add at the campsite is water! I can't recall where I found this recipe but thank you to whomever shared it!



8 cups flour
1.5 cups dry milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp baking powder

Mix and store. Mix 1 cup of dry mix with about 1/2 cup water & cook. (serves about 8)